Set up SensaBook once, in the order that saves you doing it twice.

There is no step you are forced to do first, and nothing is locked until setup is “finished”. But some things are much easier when other things already exist — so here is the order we would do it in, and the reason each step sits where it does. On your own it is one sitting; with a team, allow a little longer. Once you are signed in, SensaBook walks you through these same seven steps under More → Getting started, ticking each one off as your real setup satisfies it.

Wondering what SensaBook actually does first? See the features.

The recommended order

Seven steps. Only one of them really has to come before another, and it is called out where it happens.

1. Step 1

   Your business

   In SensaBook: More → Getting started, or More → Settings

   Most of this happens when you create your account: your business name, your business type, and your timezone. Business type is a real question at signup — pick the closest match from the list, whether that is a hair salon, a repair counter, a massage room or something else entirely. You can change it whenever you like, and it never limits the services you can offer.

   It is worth opening Settings once to check all three, and to set a default buffer — the turnaround time that is held after every appointment.

   What your customers see — your public name, description, address and web address — is a separate screen, and it comes later.

   Why this comes now: Your timezone decides how every hour you type from here on is read. Confirming it first is cheaper than re-reading a week of hours afterwards.

2. Step 2

   Your team

   In SensaBook: More → Team

   If you work on your own, this step is already done. Creating your business made you the first bookable person, under your own name. There is no employee to invent and nothing to add.

   If other people work here, add them now. Each person needs a name and an answer to one question: do they provide bookable services? Say yes and you pick which services they perform there and then — that is what makes them bookable. Say no for a manager or front-desk person, who gets a login and no booking profile at all.

   An email address is optional for someone who provides services: with one they are invited and choose their own password, and you never set it; without one they are still a real bookable person and you manage everything for them. A team member who provides no services does need one, because their login is all there is to keep.

   Someone you add follows your business hours from the day you create them, and performs exactly the services you ticked. Both are changeable on their own page whenever you like.

   Why this comes now: Every service records who is allowed to perform it, and a new service grants itself to nobody. If your people already exist, you tick them while you are creating the service. If they do not, you will be reopening every service later to do it.

3. Step 3

   What people can book

   In SensaBook: More → Services

   A service is a name, a duration, a price, and an optional buffer after it. Two switches decide where it shows up: “Active”, and “Show on public page” — so you can keep a service for your own bookings without publishing it.

   Each service also asks who performs it. With exactly one bookable person, that person is ticked for you. With more than one, nobody is ticked until you choose, because guessing on your team's behalf would sometimes be wrong.

   There is no delete. Deactivate a service instead — past appointments keep the name, duration and price they were booked at, and editing a price never rewrites history.

   Why this comes now: Services carry the durations that the next step turns into actual bookable times.

4. Step 4

   When you are open

   In SensaBook: More → Availability

   There are two levels, and one exception. “Business hours” are the hours the business is open — the outer boundary. Nothing is ever offered to a customer outside them. “Date overrides” close a holiday or open an unusual day, without touching the weekly pattern.

   Each person then either follows those business hours or keeps their own, which you set on their page under Team. Their own hours still sit inside the business hours; they narrow the day, they never extend it.

   “Blocked time” is the exception: one-off busy time inside your working hours — lunch, an errand, a dentist appointment. It cannot be booked over.

   Why this comes now: Hours plus a service's duration are what produce the times a customer is actually shown. Until both exist, your booking page has nothing to offer.

5. Step 5

   Your booking page

   In SensaBook: More → Public page

   This is the one-page site your customers use. Choose your page address — that is your link — then the display name, headline, description, public location and contact details, and whether prices are shown.

   The same screen holds the booking rules: whether clients can book online at all, whether they may ask for a specific team member or leave it as “Anyone available”, how much notice you need, how far ahead you accept bookings, how far apart start times are offered, how late a client may cancel, and where the new-booking alert lands.

   Nothing is public until you press Publish. Until then a visitor gets “not found”, and unpublishing later keeps everything you have typed.

   Why this comes now: By now the page has real services, real prices and real times to show. Filling it in before that means writing it twice.

6. Step 6

   Look at it the way a customer will

   In SensaBook: More → Public page → Preview your public page

   Preview shows exactly what a customer sees, before you publish, and the booking button is switched off in it so you cannot book yourself by accident. Nothing is created. Do this on your phone as well as your computer.

   If you want to go further, make one real booking through your published page — from your own phone, with an email address you control. Check that the service reads right, that the times make sense, that it is attributed to the right person, that it appears on Today and in the Calendar, and that the confirmation email arrives with its manage link.

   To clear it afterwards, cancel the appointment. Nothing in SensaBook is destroyed: the cancelled appointment stays in the history and the time is freed. The client record the booking created for you can be archived from that client's page.

   Why this comes now: Everything above is now real, so this is the first moment the test tells you anything. It is also the last cheap moment to find a wrong price or a wrong hour.

7. Step 7

   Start using it

   Day to day you live on four screens. Today is what is happening now and next. Calendar is the day, week and month, and where you book someone in yourself. Clients is a search-first list with each person's history and your own dated notes on them. More holds everything you set up above.

   Send feedback is in there too — on the More screen on a phone, and in the sidebar on a computer. During the beta it is the fastest way to tell us something is confusing, awkward or missing.

Why the team comes before the services

Every service records who is allowed to perform it, and SensaBook never assumes. A brand-new service is granted to nobody — unless there is exactly one bookable person in the business, in which case it is granted to them.

So if you are on your own, the order barely matters: you are already that one person, and each service you create is yours automatically. If two or more people take appointments, adding them first means you tick the right names while the service form is already open — instead of creating every service and then going back through all of them.

A service that nobody performs is still saved, and it still appears on your public page. What it cannot do is offer a customer any times — so before you publish, make sure every service you show has at least one person on it.

If you work alone, it is shorter

This is guidance, not a restriction. Nothing in SensaBook is switched on or off by how many people you have, and every account has all of it.

You do not need a client list to start

Nothing above asks you to type in the people you already see, and nothing is waiting for you to. When someone books through your page, SensaBook creates their client record as part of the booking — and only reuses an existing record when the name and the email both match. It never quietly merges two people; if it is not sure, you get a separate record and the choice stays yours.

Adding clients yourself is for the people who phone you, or the ones you want on file before their first visit. Do it as you go.